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Blue Hole National park
Relaxing after a long and very humid trek through the jungle to the inland blue hole. Following on from Mexico was Belize, a place many travelers slated before we arrived and assured us we would be mugged and generally caught up in gangland warfare. So a nervous border crossing however once in Belize we haven't had any problems at all and found everyone very welcoming and helpful when we don't know directions. The main benefit in friendly locals here is that I can understand them, as Belize is an ex-colony they all speak English rather than that Spanish rubbish so I enjoyed putting the phrase book away for a few days.
From Tulum in Mexico down to the border was a bit of a journey so we ended up spending our first night in Belize in the small town of Cozoral. It’s not a touristy place at all so gave us a good insight of Belize and the quiet carabean fishing life typical of this coast. Most the houses are wooden on stilts due to the frequent hurricanes. The town was very quiet which wasn’t a problem as we were only stopping over for a night and expected nothing special so after a traditional Belize meal of Chinese (yes nearly every restaurant is a Chinese
The great blue hole
I didn't take this one but gives you an idea of where I was diving! over here, its the main food!!) we went for a quiet drink expecting that to be that, however we ended up chatting with two middle aged teachers who insisted on buying Babs and I lots of drinks, sea food nachos and telling us all about Belize and life in Belize. When the bar shut hours later they took us on a tour around the town in their truck explaining all the local stories and places stopping off to buying illegal Mexican beers for the journey and to drink at the seaside. A very random but very fun evening, these guys were legends and taught me more about Belize than any guidebook or tour guide would.
Following on from Cozoral we passed through Belize City to Caye Caulker an island a couple of miles off the coast, and the cheapest of the touristy islands around here! It reminded me of some of the islands in Thailand due to the laid back atmosphere and it’s so small, you can walk end to end in ten minutes. However we weren't there for the island, we went for the nearby diving at the Great Blue Hole.
I have been looking forward to
Deep dark cave
I wish I had hired a flash light rather than using my rubbish one as this St Hernans Cave was pretty special the blue hole for a while now, it’s a circular sink hole surrounded by a shallow reef, created when a cave collapsed. It’s about 150m deep and home to lots of marine life as well huge stalagmites and other rock formations. I wasn't disappointed by this dive at all, it was by far the best dive I have ever done. First of all moving from the shallow reef over the hole is amazing, as you feel the rush of cold water and stare into the darkness, you can’t see the bottom. To descent to 40m was also fantastic as I have only been to 30m deep, without specialist training you can’t dive deeper than 40m anyway so I knew this would be my deepest dive ever. At this depth I started to feel a little narked (meaning you feel slightly drunk due to the nitrogen levels in your body) a very surreal experience. We then swam in and out of stalagmites we got to go into the overhangs of the cave. Finally as we started to ascend I got to see my first shark whilst diving, which would have been awesome were there not 4 of them just circling us
Legends
The random teachers we went drinking with in Cozoral! above! Due to decompression you can't rise to the surface straight away so got to spend an interesting 15 minutes with the sharks all circling our group and checking us out, as I'm writing the blog you can tell we all got out safely and looking back it was good fun. After this dive we did two others at nearby reefs which were really cool wall dives with long swim through from one side of the wall to the other as well as more fish than I have ever seen on a dive (also the biggest lobster I have ever seen, they get huge in the wild).
Following on from Caye Caulker we had a night further south in the village of Dangriga, similar to Cozoral it was good to see Belizean life away from tourists and Babs and I learnt an important lesson about the effects of ridiculously cheap rum. The next day feeling very hung over we moved across the country to San Ignatio via the Blue Hole National park (this time an inland one) completing a long trek through caves and jungle to a eerie blue hole where the water meets the caves. As you may have told from other blogs I really like trekking through jungles and this was one of my favorites as we didn’t take a guide and made our own way around, not seeing any other people for an hour or so.
San Ignatio is close to the Guatemala and a good stopping point to do plenty of tours/treks/tubing in the jungle and nearby caves. Unfortunately it’s also massively infested with American tourists which puts up prices to beyond my levels, very annoying! (Seriously tubing was $4 in Laos, they wants $65 here!) So we took in a nearby ruin which only costs 25p to get to on the bus rather than caving and was glad we did, a really impressive Mayan site with a huge temple on top of hill giving an amazing view of Belize (its only a small country, smaller than Wales).
I have enjoyed my few days in Belize; particularly as I can speak English without feeling guilty, and had none of the problems people associate with this country (although still have tonight to get through). Tomorrow it’s on to Guatemala and back to the Spanish phrase book!
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Mum
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Spanish is not rubbish!!
I should have got you speaking some Spanish before you went! You were never keen on language lessons but thought travelling might give you motivation! Nothing wrong with middle-aged teachers either! But yet again there are things you are doing like dives with sharks that I am glad I only know about after! Bex warned me about the dive - sounds really scarey. Love mum x